10 Great Sports Movies In Which The Main Character Actually Loses

The tales of underdogs, has-beens, and the most unlikely of heroes, sports movies are triumphant stories of the human spirit, of overcoming great odds, metaphors for taking on rigged system, and just about anything else you want them to be. They can be so moving and powerful in fact, that often times it doesn’t even matter if the hero wins in the end. Winning isn’t everything, right? Unless you’re a devotee of Vince Lombardi, who first said, "Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing."

There are SPOILERS for a lot of movies beyond this point, though if you read the title of this article, you can probably guessed what’s going on.

Creed, the latest chapter in the Rocky saga, is also the latest sports movie to have a big, climactic triumph that doesn’t actually involve the protagonist winning the day. Like so many sports movies, it’s not about the wins and losses, it’s about the journey of the characters. In that spirit, as Creed continues to punch it’s way through theaters and accumulate glowing reviews, we thought we’d look back at some of our favorite sports movies where the hero doesn’t win.